I have been teaching at the University of California since 1976, first at UC Riverside, and since 1981 at UCLA. In the past several years my main research and teaching interests have been heritage language learners. In 2000 I co-authored a textbook, Russian for Russians, for students who speak Russian at home but do not have sufficient literacy in the language. I am happy to see that the textbook is currently used at about thirty universities around the country. It means that many Russian programs are offering special instruction to heritage speakers of Russian. To read what the Daily Bruin wrote about a Russian class for Russian-speaking students at UCLA, click here.

In 2006 the UCLA Center for World Languages and the UC Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning were awarded a four-year Title VI grant to create the National Heritage Language Resource Center, devoted to research, teacher training, and materials development for heritage language instruction.

What I Like Doing:
See above under "What I do now".

Awards:
Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Post-secondary Level, American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European languages, 2003.
Two awards for books (see publications below).

Program Reviews:
2006: Harvard University Slavic Department
In the past ten years:
UC Santa Cruz, Foreign Language Program
University of Kentucky, Program in Vladimir, Russia
Middlebury College, The Russian School
Indiana University, Summer Slavic Workshop
University of Washington, Seattle, Uzbek Program